1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of contactless circuitry and, more particularly, to Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) devices and methods related to prevent the unauthorized interrogation and tracking thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Theft of credit or debit card information and identification has become rampant worldwide. Governments, companies, and consumers spend millions of dollars each year to prevent and pursue such thefts.
Over the years, various types of identification technology have been used for credit or debit cards and for identification. These, for example, have included pin numbers, bar codes, and magnetic strips. More recently, however, steps have been taken to use RFID or other contactless chip technology in association with credit or debit cards, passports, documents, and other areas where identification, including portable and remote, are desired. An example of such applications of RFID can be seen in a recent news article titled “Contactless Traveling” by Wright (Electronic Design News (EDN) Jul. 7, 2005) for passport applications.
Other types of uses of RFID have emerged, not necessarily coinciding with the desires of the owner of the RFID device. For example, some retailers have instituted what can only be considered inappropriate tracking of the RFID device users in order to analyze their buying habits. Such tracking ability may provide government agencies an ability to continually track an individual's movements. Although appearing somewhat futuristic, it would appear that various governments are currently spending billions of dollars for data mining operation centers to collect data on various commercial transactions. Eventually they may embed RFID tags into all required government documents. Various government agencies would know this and could use the various tracking techniques to track of any individual's movements by pinging the individual's RFID device at opportune locations with RFID interrogation devices or other forms of RFID readers.
The recent developments in technology do not fully address potential security breaches of the RFID such as when an unauthorized RFID interrogation or reading device attempts to extract the RFID information or track the RFID device, especially when a user or possessor of an RFID device is unsuspecting or not cognizant that the RFID device is being interrogated.
Others have attempted solutions at creating blocking RFID devices to enhance privacy. Examples can be seen in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0222878 A1 by Juels titled “Low-Complexity Cryptographic Techniques For Use With Radio Frequency Identification Devices,” U.S. Pat. No. 6,970,070, by Juels, et al. titled “Method and Apparatus For Selective Blocking of Radio Frequency Identification Devices,” and U.S. Pat. No. 7,298,243 by Juels, et al. titled “Radio Frequency Identification System With Privacy Policy Implementation Based on Device Classification.” Such attempted solutions, however, do not provide a protection capability that can be applied independent of the information contained in the RFID device to be protected, or the location of the device with respect to the external environment. That is, such devices generally either require a classification engine, require positioning in a designated privacy zone, require application of a specified privacy policy, require knowledge of the identifier of the device to be protected, or require some form of information encryption.
Accordingly, there still exists a need for a simple, flexible, and practical security and privacy protection solution for RFID and other contactless circuitry or chip devices, which can prevent a transmission from an RFID reader or scanner from activating an RFID device, which can prevent the reader from receiving readable data if activated, and which can indicate to the user when an RFID reader or scanner is attempting to interrogate the user's RFID device. There also exists a need for a simple, flexible, and practical security and privacy protection solution which can be restricted to functioning only when in close proximity to the device to be protected, regardless of the location of the device with respect to the external environment, and that will not interfere with the operation of an RFID device reader or scanner when not positioned in close proximity to the device to be protected.
Factors such as expense, size, practical and flexible use requirements for RFID and other contactless chip technology create problems and barriers for widespread use in many applications. Accordingly, there further exists a need for a solution that provide users of RFID devices increased flexibility with little or no increase in expense or size, and yet effectively block or otherwise prevent unauthorized access to RFID information associated with the RFID device to be protected.